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Tuesday, 14 May 2013

The Believer

Directed by Henry Bean A young
Jewish man Daniel Balint (Ryan Gosling) who grows up to become fiercely
anti-Semitic and racist to all other minorities and becomes a Neo-Nazi. Loosely
based on a true story of a KKK member Daniel Burros who become a member of the
American Nazi Party and The United Klans of America but was exposed by a New
York Times reporter to be Jewish and committed suicide.

Danny Balint is portrayed as an
intellectual and well-mannered person however at the same time this unorthodox
Jewish boy had a paradox of being a Neo-Nazi. Being utterly vicious and fuelled
with hate and even more so being a self-hating Jew this abhorrence only made
the delusion even worst. We like to think that being a fascist or racist makes
you very narrow minded and viewed of being idiotic well here is a fascist Nazi
who is racist to all minorities but he is not the mindless idiotic Ku Klux Klan
redneck or skinhead neo-Nazi. This is a young and very smart Jewish man who
cultivates fierce anti-Semitic views on the world has a very powerful and
persuasive way to rant his political beliefs. Anyone who challenges Daniel
receives the full disgust and malevolence but he isn’t just ranting mindlessly Henry
Bean not only crafted Danny to become a spiteful racist but a very knowledgeable
chauvinistic neo-Nazi. Danny’s outbursts are not seen of mindless racism but
rather a speaker who uses reason who effectively commands and mesmerise the
people who are around him with what seems to be statistical and factual
material but rather propaganda. His style of speeches and manner is identical
to Adolf Hitler and his knowledge of Torah, Hebrew and Judaism is from his
Jewish background but he sees it as knowing your enemy and compares himself to Adolf
Eichmann who studies Judaism.

But beneath this master of
dialectic and ice cold vision of white Aryan race was just really a confused
and angry boy. Who questions and argues with unorthodox interpretations of
scripture like the Binding of Isaac arguing that God wanted Abraham's faith to
be unquestioning submission making God not the almighty but rather the
tormenter who became power mad. The Believer is a fantastic portrayal of how
any anyone can be a Nazi sympathizer or even a Nazi themselves no matter what
ethnic background. This is a brilliant drama of one man’s journey of racism and
anger is really a voyage of self-loathing.